Freetown, Lakeville Finance Committees Unite to Press School District on FY26 Budget

FREETOWN -- November 13, 2024, Freetown and Lakeville Finance Committees launch a coordinated push for school district budget transparency. The two panels met jointly on November 13 with town administrators Deborah Carreiro and Andrew Sordillo to compare fiscal pressures and agree on a shared strategy heading into the FY26 school budget cycle, with the regional school district's assessment consuming roughly 57 percent of Freetown's budget and 48 percent of Lakeville's. Freetown Finance Committee Chair Christopher Plunkett and Lakeville Finance Committee Chair Margaret Haffner cited an apparent $360,000 salary deficit in the district's October 31 expenditure report, a $2.2 million Excess and Deficiency reserve approaching the state's 5 percent cap, and a year-end FY24 surplus that returned approximately $750,000 to the towns. The committees agreed to send Finance Director Jack Higgins a five-year E&D history request, class-size breakdowns, and school choice and circuit breaker fund details, then reconvene in early December before the Regional Finance Subcommittee's scheduled mid-December meeting, a body that held only one session in all of 2023.